What Year Was This, Anyway?

It’s the last day of 2009, time for everybody to reflect on the year’s significance. For me, it will stand as the year I got back into the guitar – and became even more unstuck in time than some of these posts would suggest.

I’ve been playing acoustic guitar since my early teens. Took lessons, played at high school hootenannies, did the amateur coffee-house bit. I still own the Gibson LG-0 I bought in college; then around 1980 I shifted to a nylon-stringed Ovation. But over the years, they’ve both collected more time in the case than out.
 
Last Spring, I picked up a “Little Martin” and liked the size and the sound – there’s something about steel strings – so started shopping around. That’s how I stumbled on “parlor guitars.”

I’d never known about this sub-genre in all my years of playing, small-body guitars that gained popularity in the early twentieth century. After sifting through the options, I decided I wanted to try a Seagull “Coastline Cedar Grand,” found a dealer in Flagstaff, and fell in love. It’s an amazing little instrument, very comfortable to sit around with, made in Canada with a solid cedar top and wild cherry sides. The sound from its small box is surprisingly full, and it promises to become more mellow as the cedar ages.

Now here’s the curious bit. All my life I’ve been more or less a folkie with singer-songwriter pretensions and a slight tilt toward the blues. But with the Seagull I’ve found myself getting into old standards from as far back as the 20s. Call it homage to the parlor guitar’s heyday – or else the result of watching too many Woody Allen movies.

Some of them are songs I grew up listening to, like my dad’s Glenn Miller favorites, and I’ve especially taken to assembling medleys. I’ve found that “Moonlight Serenade” (1939) segues nicely into “Moonlight Cocktails” (1942) and then into “Stardust” (1929). Then there’s “The Way You Look Tonight” (1936) leading into “There Will Never Be Another You” (1942) followed by “It Had to Be You” (1924). “When My Sugar Walks Down the Street” (1924) slips into “When I Take My Sugar to Tea” (1931) and then into “Tea for Two” (1924). And just yesterday I discovered that Monk’s “Round Midnight” (1944) flows nicely into “Harlem Nocturne” (1943) – written 23 years before the Viscounts’ version.

There are also some stand-alones. That old staple “Body and Soul” (1930) took a while to work out the chords for the bridge, as did “Cry Me a River” (1953). And I’ve come up with my own version of “Stormy Weather” (1933) by borrowing a David Bromberg riff. Meanwhile, “Chattanooga Choo Choo” (1941) is presenting some challenges up on the fretboard.

So, we don’ need no steenking heep-hop. I may be out of touch as far as Lady Gaga is concerned, but I found old tunes an enjoyable way to spend 2009.

The Dude

An amusing article in today’s NYT arts section reports on an academic conference devoted to the film The Big Lebowski and on the book that came out of it, The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies, published by Indiana University Press. This cult film has apparently spawned a cottage industry of academic criticism, and as a former member of the university press community I have to smile. Over the 26 years I held down a desk in that endeavor, I always felt that the slogan of university presses should be “Keeping the World Safe for Pedantry”; it’s nice to know that some are also keeping it safe for insanity.

I actually re-acquainted myself with this film a couple of months ago. I had recently read Pynchon’s latest, Inherent Vice, whose protagonist, Doc Sportello, reminded a few critics of the Dude. The commonality is that both are potheads trying to solve a mystery, within a plot conducive to paranoia, while negotiating the world on their own terms. The difference is that, while Doc Sportello is a private eye who solves mysteries for a living, the Dude is your Hitchcockian victim of false identity simply trying to find out who peed on his rug. Because as fans know, that rug really tied the room together.

This is definitely a film that retains its quirky charm over repeated viewings. John Goodman and Steve Buscemi in supporting roles perfectly complement Jeff Bridges, while a band of German nihilists capture the Coen brothers’ innate wackiness. Sam Elliot narrates charmingly for no apparent reason. And the musical sequences are high-camp Hollywood via acid flashback.

Quoting the article, “Admirers of the Dude are already dangerously close to becoming Internet-age versions of Parrotheads, the weekend-warrior Jimmy Buffett fans who tip back margaritas — and embarrass their children — while wearing flip-flops, board shorts, Hawaiian shirts and coconut bras.” I like to think not. I prefer to imagine admirers of the Dude as folks who’d just as soon maintain a healthy detachment from an insane world. Some of us choose solitary pursuits; the Dude chose bowling. Whatever it takes.

The Dude abides.

TV or Not TV?

For me, one of the novelties of traveling and staying in a motel is watching TV, since Beth and I have whittled our viewing down over the years – and our options as well.

Once upon a time we were the typical cable household. Then about 20 years ago, when the local provider dropped the station for the baseball team we were following, we made the move to a big dish that enabled you to buy programming a la carte. Over the years we pared down our subscriptions to what we really watched – Comedy Central for The Daily Show, HBO or Showtime for movies – and as free feeds vanished we effectively removed ourselves from the channel-surfing subculture. When we pulled up stakes, we left the dish and a malfunctioning 30-inch TV behind.

Now we watch As Time Goes By reruns and FlashForward via antenna and access movies (occasionally) on DVD, all on a 19-inch monitor in the living room that otherwise rarely gets turned on. (Another one downstairs provides distraction for the Nordic Track.) I’m content to wait until the next day to get my Daily Show fix for free on-line. Used to watch network news from force of habit, but by the time it comes on I’ve already caught up on everything on the Internet so have broken free from that. For the most part, evenings are spent in that antiquated pastime known as “reading,” with accompaniment from satellite radio. If I want to watch something – I’ve been working my way through DVD sets of Seinfeld and MASH – I do so on my laptop.

So when the hotel in which we were staying for our Christmas trip featured a 32-inch LCD TV, my first reaction was “way cool!” Spent some time surfing to remind myself there were no cable offerings I particularly missed (and the aforementioned nonstop coverage of aborted terrorism was more than I could take), but enjoyed watching a couple of familiar movies on the larger screen. Maybe, thinks I, we should break down and get one of these, if only for a bigger view of the occasional flick. And so I did a little browsing on Amazon, which is enough to put you off purchasing nearly anything that has the potential to fail.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Amazon and value customer comments. But it seems like any product with enough reviews to provide a statistically reliable cross-section of opinion is going to have somebody trashing it. Comparing technical specifications of TVs is bad enough – what do I know from pixels or aspect ratios? – but when a handful of satisfied customers are offset by someone complaining about a product being DOA, buying anything becomes a crapshoot.

And so as I contemplated a TV that would in all probability get watched no more than it does now, along with the off-chance that the one I got would break down the day after the warranty expired, I finally said the hell with it. Maybe I’ll just sit closer to the one we have.

The End Is Near

Everyone’s saying that we’re approaching the end of the decade, so it must be true. Me, I find it hard to think of the Aughts as a discrete collection of years – aren’t those zeroes just place holders of some sort?

So yes, tongues are wagging and ink is spilling (figuratively in most cases) over 9/11 and Iraq, over real estate and recession, over disputed elections and political defections, over W and O and who gets blamed for what. But when you get down to it, it’s nothing but an excuse to fill time and space in what has become our wretchedly depraved 24-hour news cycle.

Having just returned from a holiday trip, I’m especially unnerved by the brouhaha over the latest attempt to bring down a plane. So the guy was attempting to mix something up out of chemicals taped to his legs in baggies? Swell. The failed shoe bomber led to our having to shed our footwear for security (and we should all be grateful he didn’t hide the explosive in his jockstrap); now I suppose we’ll need to prove there’s nothing up our sleeves or pant legs. The day will come when we’ll have to disrobe completely, hand our garments over for return after the flight, and don paper suits for the plane.

It’s not that this event made me apprehensive about my return flight, it’s the fact that it was on the tube all the time! Although I considered it not worth worrying that such an incident would befall my own flight, one doubt nagged at me. I didn’t fear another jihadist attempting the same action; I was more concerned that some nutcase would attempt a copycat move. And the reason that might happen is that said nutcase would have seen it on the TV news nonstop. If the media would stop acting like a dog with a bone, we’d all be better off. And probably a lot safer.

If the end is near, you’ll find out from CNN or FOX or MSNBC – and they’ll be bringing it to you live, right up to the bitter end. Whether anyone is left to watch or not.

Flashing

I admit to not being terribly with it. I never heard the song (“Bad Day”) that’s being touted as the decade’s top one-hit wonder. I learned only about a month ago that there exists a performer named Lady Gaga. I don’t usually watch TV so didn’t follow Lost and have never seen American Idol. But I’ve gotten hooked on FlashForward.

In a nutshell: everybody passes out for 2 minutes & 17 seconds and sees six months into their future. The questions are: (1) whodunit (and why and how) and (2) do the visions show futures that must necessarily come to pass. It’s free will vs determinism for the boob tube. You got your global conspiracies, your quantum mechanics, and of course your human interest. By now you also got your web sites and forums. And after 10 episodes, you got total confusion that won’t be relieved until March, because the show’s just gone on hiatus (but now available in reruns (or online) for anyone who missed it). So no furtherance of confusion tonight.

The whole notion of seeing into the future is irresistible. Is it because we want to take measures against misfortune? Or comfort in the belief that, no matter how crummy things are now, they’re going to get better? On a deeper level, is it because we each have a self that seeks assurance of its own continuity? Or simply because we’re the one animal that knows it’s going to die – and are desperately afraid? (Does death even exist?) That, after all, is the basis of religion – and it’s curious that, thus far, FlashForward hasn’t had much to say about that.

Most precognition seems to come in the form of dreams, so it’s not inappropriate that this show focuses on dream-like experiences. Maybe while dreaming we tap into some non-linear comprehension of existence in which the future has already occurred. If so, does that send free will out the window? Or does it only seem that way because we’re trapped in our own linearity? Just because we haven’t experienced something yet in our current timeline doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened – or that we didn’t bring it about of our own free will.

Fittingly – or should I say teasingly – the last episode lived up to its real-time premise by providing nods to Dickens’ Christmas Carol, with Scrooge’s fear that the visions presented by the Ghost of Christmas Future must come to pass. Tiny Tim won’t necessarily die, and neither, perhaps, will Agent Noh. But only perhaps – we won’t know until March.

Hang Up and Drive!

I posted a couple of days ago about the conservative streak that runs thru my community. But there are limits. Someone recently wrote a letter to the editor describing nearly getting killed by someone talking on their cell phone while driving, but he rationalized the conclusion that no new laws were needed. Conservatives just hate any restrictions on their personal freedom, even if they make sense. Even if lives are at stake.

Well, I was gratified to see a goodly number of people calling for such regulation. Conservative politically or not, it would appear that many of my fellow Prescottonians are traditionalists first and foremost, and believe that people should not be allowed to get away with putting other folks in jeopardy just because they’re attached to these new-fangled gadgets. Even so, there are still a few lunkheads who insist that this is a slippery slope that will lead to bans on all sorts of activities behind the wheel.

The New York Times has been running an excellent series called “Driven to Distraction” about the dangers of using cell phones while driving. If you have any doubts concerning the scope of this problem, click thru.

The image, by the way, is from an Aussie public awareness campaign to discourage the practice. Says it all, I think. (But this one says a little more....)

Hey Mr. Taliban, Tally Me Bananas

The rumblings have begun. The antiwar movement is coming out against Obama’s surge in Afghanistan. Read your history, Mr. President: this is exactly what Lyndon Johnson faced. It’s a no-win situation, and it will derail your presidency as sure as it did his. LBJ may not have had a Peace Prize in his vest pocket, but it’s not going to do you much good.

Shall we enumerate the parallels? Pursuing a goal that recedes with each passing year. Intervening on behalf of a corruption-ridden government. Escalating as a knee-jerk response to futility. Second-guessing troop strength. Facing an enemy that’s popular at the grass-roots level – and that’s more determined than we are. Trying to impose our prescription for government on a foreign culture. Fighting a “primitive” people with advanced weaponry to no avail. Being constrained by borders that have no meaning to the enemy. Doing it all in the name of combating what is perceived as the dominant threat to our way of life – then, international Communism; now, radical Islam. 

Afghanistan isn’t called the “graveyard of empires” for nothing. We’re in yet another last-man-to-die-for-a-mistake scenario, and there’s no getting out of it. Even the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is looking down in the mouth.

This is insanity. It’s nuts, it’s bananas. Do the sane thing, Mr. President. Face the fact that there will always be people out there who hate us. And if the CIA can’t whack bin Laden, don’t kid yourself that all those troops can do it. Disagreement within your own administration over when we can plan on getting out ought to tell you something.

Otherwise, at least do the right thing. Give back your prize.

Digging Martinis with Gnossos

I posted the other day about Dave Brubeck, and while I was tempted to comment on the extraordinary sound of Paul Desmond’s alto sax, I thought it more appropriate to focus on Dave. The Desmond sound is instantly recognizable and has been likened to that of a dry martini. But I have to say that when I’m sipping one, I’m reminded as much of old hippies as I am of Paul Desmond.

When I was growing up, I associated martinis with night clubs and Madison Avenue (the latter probably thanks to Mad Magazine), and I assumed that no one but sophisticated urbanites were inclined to drink them. That perception changed when I reached college – not because I was introduced to them but because I became hooked on Richard Fariña’s novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, whose hero, Gnossos Pappadopoulis, digs martinis. Birdbath martinis, made with Beefeater gin. A curious preference for a hippie prototype (he also digs grass), but that’s what made Gnossos such a compelling character – admittedly more hipster than hippie, but a forerunner all the same.

The paperback of Been Down So Long came out just as I was starting college, and its scenes of sex and drugs had a lot to do with breaking me out of my straight-laced thinking. (Even the cover was daring for its time.) No rock ’n roll, though: it was set in the 50s, and Gnossos favored jazz, especially by Mose Allison and Miles Davis. (One of my favorite scenes has Gnossos being given last rites for a hangover and muttering, with reference to Miles playing in the background, “More treble, we’re losing the highs.”) It was also about campus protests before there were campus protests, as it was based on one at Cornell concerning co-ed curfews. Throughout the book, the code by which Gnossos lives is detachment – I am invisible, he thinks often. And Exempt. Immunity has been granted to me, for I do not lose my cool – and for me (and I suspect others) the lesson stuck. 

BDSL was a 60s college-age version of Catcher in the Rye. I read it, passed along my copy, bought another, and started the cycle again. Ten years ago, I finally plunked down some big bucks for a first edition.

So why am I mentioning this, other than to embark on another nostalgia trip? Simply because I’m curious whether, 40 years later, there’s a counterpart, a book that captures the essence of a generation and offers a role model (however questionable). Is there a new Gnossos (or a new Holden)? Do kids in their late teens still press books into friends’ hands and say “You’ve gotta read this”? Or have the heroes all gone over to movies and TV? (Was Bobby Dupea a step in this direction?) And if that’s the case, is this a reflection of the “decline of the book”? 

Or just of a directionless culture?

Government Health Care: WWJD?

It was two years ago that we bought our house in Prescott and started getting ready to move from Tucson. Arizona is a conservative state, and we’d been residing in its most liberal district for more than two-dozen years; we knew we were relocating to a more traditionalist, less culturally diverse area but were willing to pay the price to escape the heat and sprawl.

It’s not just conservative politically: one of my friends commented that we were moving to the “Bible Belt,” and I can see his point. Summer church camps abound and Gideon Bibles lie in physicians’ waiting rooms. A questionnaire from one doctor for whom I got a referral even inquired about my faith. On the other hand, there’s a thriving arts community; Prescott College students provide a semblance of hippie culture; and last fall just down our street two houses on opposite sides sported Obama signs in their yards.

Another indicator of Prescott’s having two sociopolitical camps appears in on-line comments to editorials and letters-to-the-editor in the Daily Courier. The exchange between left and right is nothing short of scathing. I thought it had been brutal during the election, but the debate over health care has really pushed the envelope. I wouldn’t have bothered commenting on this since I’m sure it goes on everywhere, but a letter that appeared yesterday – and the comments to it – are worth noting.

The letter is brief: “I am being priced out of health care. I needed a test done and the doctor wanted the $1,000 co-pay first. It has been 11 months and I still have not had the test. If you are a Christian, vote for national health care.”

Some of the responses are startling: “Charity at the threat of government fines and imprisonment is neither charity OR Christian. It is fascism.” . . . “It’s time for everyone to get off their hind ends, quit looking for handouts and start doing for yourself.” . . . “So you want the government to control you is that it?” . . . “If you had worked harder in school you would not be in the position you are in, using BLASPHEMY to try to further your selfish agenda.”

I hope the last one was tongue-in-cheek, but suspect otherwise. (And btw, if you go to the link, the Wayne commenting is not yours truly.) I’ve come to expect these kinds of reactions in the general give-and-take over the issue, but not with so much hostility to an appeal to religious solidarity. What I find most disturbing is that in an overwhelmingly Christian community the notion of providing a common good for fellow citizens is trumped by knee-jerk paranoia about big government. If W had proposed health care under the banner of Compassionate Conservatism, would the reaction have been as fierce? Reactions to the precedent of other industrialized nations outdoing us simply echo the parental response of “If everybody else jumped off the bridge, would you jump too?”

I find this a sad commentary on a supposedly Christian nation, where the poster-girl for the religious right advocates America getting back to God (in advance of what is presumably a presidential bid). I suspect she means the God of the Old Testament – you know, the vindictive slayer of enemies – not Jesus’ God of Love. Because there’s no love showing in some folks’ attitudes about what government of, by, and for the people can do for their fellow man.

It's About Time

Tomorrow night is the 32nd annual “Kennedy Center Honors,” with this year’s honorees being Mel Brooks, Dave Brubeck, Grace Bumbry, Robert De Niro, and Bruce Springsteen. You might think I’d want to comment on Bruce receiving this tribute, perhaps questioning whether it’s coming too soon (probably not). But I’d rather focus on Dave Brubeck – and say that it’s about time.

Dave has been a giant of the jazz world for more than half a century. He made his mark in the 50s by introducing a generation of college students to cool jazz even before the album Time Out catapulted him to the top of the charts and the cover of Time Magazine. (Yesterday the xm/sirius jazz station did a set of jazz musicians who had made the cover, and there were only five.) His legendary explorations in time signatures that until then were alien to jazz solidified his reputation as an innovator. For most fans, Brubeck’s music is “about time”; but it’s also about counterpoint and improvisation, interpretations of Disney and Japan, even cantatas and oratorios. 

The cruel irony of Dave’s career is that the one tune with which he became forever associated, “Take Five,” was written by his late partner, saxman Paul Desmond. It must be bittersweet to be best known for somebody else’s composition when you’ve written so many outstanding ones of your own. (For me, Brubeck will always mean “Blue Rondo à la Turk” from the same album.) But he’s kept it in his repertoire long past Desmond’s departure.

Now here’s the rub: as it happens, tomorrow is also Dave’s 89th birthday. 89!!!! Why did the Kennedy Center take so long to honor this legendary artist? Especially since previous honorees include Brit rockers Elton John, Pete Townshend, and Roger Daltrey. What a travesty!

You deserve it, Dave. You swing.

Power of Suggest(ion)

It’s pretty weird that when you type “can j” in the Google box, the first suggestion it gives you is “can jesus microwave a burrito.” And see for yourself the long, bizarre entry partway down the list that comes up when you simply enter “what.” These and others were included in a survey of “Most Inappropriate Google Suggests” on Huffington Post. You can’t look at these screen captures without thinking they’re fake - until you test a couple and find out they’re real.

Presumably, all of these suggests are questions commonly asked on the Internet. I tried some of my own, using the sequence “does _” where _ is filled in with any letter of the alphabet. No matter what letter I used, most of the results were questions having to do with sex or drugs or alcohol (or testing for them). The expected exceptions were for o (“does obama have a birth certificate”) and u (“does ups deliver on saturday” – no question related to urine, although the last suggest is “does ups drug test”). When I finally arrived at y, I was intrigued to see “does your heart stop when you sneeze” – and that when I clicked on it, it delivered 379,000 hits.

This reminded me of a ridiculous line I’d heard close to 40 years ago: “if you sneeze, fart, and burp at the same time, you will die.” (I had passed this as an anonymous note to a coworker, who in turn left it on the boss’s chair.) When I started to type “if you sneeze,” Google suggested the entry “if you sneeze with your eyes open will they pop out,” with 199,000 hits. When I tried to prompt it by typing “if you sneeze, fart,” I received no suggest to complete the phrase; however, searching on that fragment did indeed produce hits related to the sneeze/fart/burp myth, with hiccups and coughs thrown into the mix.

And by the way: “does y” also shows that “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight” lives on in cyberspace if not on the airways. But hey, I’m not doing all the work – you’ll have to find out for yourself if your heart stops when you sneeze.

Interestingly enough, the very first example on Huffpost shows that “i am” produces the top result “i am bored.” Why else would anybody play this game?

Still Far from Easy after All These Years

Working out on the Nordic Track is almost the only time I watch movies anymore, and I still have a ways to go with the Woody Allen collection. (Small Time Crooks was marginally better than I remembered; The Curse of the Jade Scorpion just as lame as I’d recalled.) Occasionally we’ll view one at night on our kinda puny TV, which we don’t much otherwise turn on. But sometimes I’ll watch one on my laptop in the evening while Beth reads.

Given the fact that I went ahead and listed my favorite movies for this blog’s profile, I decided it was time to re-view one. The first five are my all-time faves, in order, and I realized it had been a while since I’d watched Five Easy Pieces. So a couple of nights ago I popped in the disk and took myself back to 1970, when some segments of society were still stuck in the fifties and Jack Nicholson’s hairline hadn’t completely receded. (Jeez, we’re talkin’ nearly 40 years here! Back then would I have watched a movie from 1930?) 

 

It’s gotten to the point where I can practically recite the dialogue along with the actors. “You play that thing one more time, I’m gonna melt it down into hairspray.” ... “We’ve had our break, Miss Dupea.” ... “I don’t even want to talk about it.” ... “I’m sitting here listening to some cracker asshole compare his life to mine.” ... “You play the piano all day and then jump on a horse, you could get cramps.” ... “Where we’re goin’, it’s gonna get colder than hell.” And of course the immortal “I want you to hold it between your knees.”

Robert Eroica Dupea, who abandons a career as a classical pianist for a haphazard life in the blue collar world, is one of cinema’s most fascinating character studies, as well as one of Nicholson’s standout roles. He seems to be a man unsure of what he wants to do but determined to resist other people’s expectations. Yet he can’t easily shake off an inner code that compels him to be concerned for his father’s health, show affection for his sister, and even defend his dimwitted girlfriend in front of a group of snobs. The scene with his father is particularly telling. . . . 

When Bobby says "We both know I was never that good at it anyway," does he mean piano or apology? No matter: I don’t know that Nicholson ever topped that scene.

There are other delights, of course. Great supporting cast: Susan Anspach, Ralph Waite, Billy Green Bush, Fannie Flagg, Lois Smith. There’s Sally Struthers in her first big role, and Toni Basil (Hey Mickey, whatever happened to Toni Basil?) as the less-vocal hitchhiker. The great juxtaposition of music, country & classical. And of course, best of all, Karen Black as Rayette Dipesto, pouting her way into our hearts as she sings Tammy Wynette tunes. (How, do you suppose, did screenwriter Carole Eastman settle on the names Dupea and Dipesto?)

BTW, I once corrected VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever over their entry for this film. Their snippet claimed that Nicholson’s character had been away from home for something like twenty years; I pointed out that not only would Jack have had to look a lot older, there was the scene at the dinner table where his absence was discussed as being around two years. I was pleased to see it corrected in the next edition – just my small contribution to the public record. Meanwhile, there still seem to be a lot of synopses out there that assume that Bobby’s working on an oil rig sets the early scenes in Oklahoma – but it’s really California.

Never seen it? It’s worth a rental. And I guarantee you’ll never feel the same about requesting substitutions in a restaurant.

Words to Live By

As I’ve gotten this blog going, I realized I needed to announce it by at least including the URL as a signature in my emails. And that reminded me of another signature I always meant to add but never did.

Elvis Costello burst upon the scene in 1977 with My Aim Is True, now a punk/new wave classic. The throbbing beat of “Watching the Detectives” and the poignancy of “Alison” mark what are probably the best-known songs, but it’s in “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” that you’ll hear what’s for me the album’s most unforgettable line: “I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.” When things get really crazy in the world, I try to remember that lyric. And just like that effort of remembrance, it’s the “try” that says it all. 

That line always brings to mind another from 13 years earlier: “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” The song was “My Back Pages,” the album Another Side of Bob Dylan, and it marked our folksinging hero’s presumed disengagement from the protest movement. Dylan implied, to the dismay of many, that getting overwrought about issues was an old person’s game (are you listening, teabaggers?), and in his next three albums he was to revel in his newfound youthfulness. He used to be disgusted, he was telling us, but he decided to let his amusement show instead.

There was a big difference between 1964 and 1977, of course. When Dylan penned those lyrics we were still shaken by JFK’s assassination, so maybe he was telling us that he was throwing in the towel. And with LBJ in the White House, it marked an escalation of the Vietnam War. But by 1977, it was all over – not only the war, but the draft as well – and an easier time to try to be amused by disagreeable events (if you could find any).

Now Obama is sending 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan, and the similarity is chilling – not only the war effort, but also the prospect of a committed liberal’s domestic agenda being overshadowed by fumbling foreign policy. There’s also a big difference between the two military actions: back then, we were being sent to fight against our will; now we have a volunteer army. And while today’s soldiers may be suffering under the weight of too many tours, those who haven’t joined up have no reason to take to the streets. Which makes one wonder if the powers that be prefer it that way.

So I’m still disgusted. Problem is, being amused keeps getting harder. But I try.

Waist Management

I suppose I was lucky to maintain roughly the same weight for almost 40 years. I was never slim - and have never been athletic - but there’s something to be said for consistency. So when I complained to my doctor (kinda chubby, so he made me feel thinner) that I’d been taking a 36 waist in pants since high school and recently had to go up an inch, he retorted “I don’t want to hear about it.” “Do you have a particular weakness?” I asked him. “Yeah,” he replied, “food.” That pretty much sums it up.

Things definitely got out of hand a year ago. First I was laid up with a broken ankle all summer, which effectively kept me from exercising for almost 3 months. Then last Christmas we got the bright idea to make cookies to send to people – and of course made a couple batches for ourselves. And then a couple more. 
 
I’ve never really recovered from that double punch, and even the 37s that Bean and Lands End thoughtfully provide (why do most stores skip odd sizes after 36?) have begun to feel tight – bad news with the holidays kicking off - and so I’ve hauled the Nordic Track out of storage. We’ve had that contraption for 20 years – Beth affectionately calls it “the torture machine” – and it keeps on trackin’.

My purpose here, however, is not to lament my condition but rather celebrate its cause.

Anyone who cooks (it being my role in this house) knows that the true value of the Internet lies in providing access to recipes. There have to be a gazillion of ’em up there, and they render printed cookbooks practically obsolete. Don't know where to begin? Just to go Cookthink, plug in what you’ve got sitting in the fridge, and it’ll give you recipes.

When I first started blog-surfing and came upon food blogs, it was like accessing a whole library of digital cookbooks. I landed on Sapid & Sweet shortly after it started and found a recipe for chick-pea fries, now firmly entrenched in my repertoire. The list of that poster’s favorite blogs led me to Smitten Kitchen and a foolproof recipe for jalapeño-cheddar scones. Stumbling on “what megan’s making...” provided a recipe for baked pasta with sausage that I found to be a step beyond Mark Bittman’s one for baked ziti that I had almost committed to, and it was so good that we didn’t mind having leftovers twice. But Megan was also making chocolate-chip pumpkin bread, and although I had managed to ignore most dessert items I came across (I’m more of a cook than a baker), that proved to be my achilles heel.

Let me tell you, this treat was so incredibly good – and using Ghirardelli 60% cacao chips undoubtedly contributed to making it healthy. The two loaves that the recipe produced were huge and dense, so anticipatory guilt compelled me to take one over to Beth’s sister’s for Thanksgiving dinner rather than freeze it for our own consumption later. Never mind the fact that Barb’s dessert buffet also featured pumpkin pie freshly baked by our niece Emily and two more pies (rhubarb and blueberry) that Dave’s dad had brought up from Rock Springs Café – pie heaven if ever there was one. I felt lucky he didn’t bring coconut cream or I would’ve waved the white flag then and there.

The other shoe waiting to drop is that I had a birthday a couple weeks ago and Beth gave me a gift certificate to Shannon’s Gourmet Cheesecakes here in town. I love New York style cheesecake (forget those silly refrigerator versions) almost as much as I do Beth - after all, it’s nature’s perfect food - and I sincerely believe it loves me right back. Unfortunately – or not – this recent recipe from Smitten Kitchen will probably remain beyond my grasp.

It just doesn’t end – and it’s not only the sweet stuff I’m talkin’ about: it’s hard to resist those artisan breads on a trip to Costco (as I avert my eyes from the tiramisu) or the ease of making pasta dishes for dinner, but I know that I don’t need the carbs either. At least that’s what the torture machine tells me.

So we’ll forego the cookies this year, and with any luck I won’t have to move beyond those 37s. Besides, I have a new doctor – and he’s fit as a fiddle.

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Update to Black Friday: I usually go to the Reuters site for their brief headline summary of what “Investors” are up to that day. Yesterday morning’s was “Stocks gain as retail sales counter Dubai.” Things slipped a bit after the opening bell but ended up, so it's interesting to note that Mr. Market was more attuned to shoppers than sheiks.

A Face in the Crowd

Lately I’ve been working my way thru a bunch of Woody Allen movies, taped from cable over several years, while putting in sessions on the Nordic Track (a futile effort in waist management). I recently watched Zelig for the first time in a while and found it fascinating.

No doubt about it, the technical tricks in this tale of a flapper-era “chameleon man” are amazing, and I was pleasantly surprised that there were more laugh-out-loud lines than I’d remembered. One incidental touch I found startling was seeing the Mia Farrow character with a cigarette in hand in nearly every scene – it made me wonder whether it was some strange inside joke.

But that wasn’t nearly as jarring as the bit where the vanished Leonard Zelig resurfaced in Nazi Germany. The voiceover spoke of Hitler’s popularity as a product of economic hard times and renewed nationalism, and it gave me a bit of a chill to think that it could happen here.

Before I proceed, some disclosure might be in order. I’m what is known on the right as a “left-wing moonbat.” To quote Will Rogers, I don’t belong to an organized political party - I’m a Democrat. (Actually I used to be Independent and then registered Republican so I could vote against the loonies in the last congressional primary, but I got so sick of the mail I started getting from the RNC that I re-registered Democrat for spite.) I would gladly entertain Republican arguments regarding fiscal policy, but I have no time for their social agenda. As was famously said by my long-time hero Barry Goldwater, people like Jerry Falwell deserve a kick in the ass. When McCain chose Palin as a running mate, it clinched my vote for Obama (I preferred Hillary); although despite the idealism surrounding his candidacy, I feared he would be too divisive – and he’s proven to be just that.

Even so, I’m frankly bewildered by the Obama/Hitler analogies espoused by the wingnuts. Granted, that stylized poster was creepy, but these people have severed all contact with reality. A few months ago, Beth and I were having lunch at the local brewpub, which faces our town square, when we noticed a commotion across the street and saw a teabagger demonstration forming. Some of the signs read “King Obama,” and I wanted to ask the people holding them where they had been when W was expanding executive powers and generally pissing on the Constitution – but then you don’t have to resort to thought processes when you take your cues from an admitted rodeo clown. The rantings of Beck, Hannity, & Limbaugh as they wrap themselves in the flag make me think of another classic movie, Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd.



If you’re not familiar with this gem from 1957, you’d be startled to watch Andy Griffith in his first screen appearance, portraying a philosophizing bumpkin who becomes a manipulative media sensation. It views like a precursor to Glenn Beck (and if you’ve never seen Jon Stewart’s brilliant parody, check this link); yet when I looked at the comments on Amazon I was startled to see that at least one person likened the character to Obama. I suppose it’s all a matter of one’s point of view; unfortuntely, when that p.o.v. is spoonfed by Fox News, it tends to be a bit skewed.

The teabaggers ignore one indisputable truth: if a Hitler were to emerge in this country, such a tyrant could never come from the left - like Rogers said, we’re simply too disorganized. But ever hopeful, I remain open to suggestions for any politician who can unite what W hath put asunder.

Rube Goldberg Rides Again

I came across this gif while blog-surfing and traced it back to Flickr:




I find it absolutely mesmerizing. Whoever designed this? How long has it been around? (Beth says that she’d seen it a while ago.) I’d call it a Rube Goldberg, except those contraptions supposedly perform recognizable tasks – and I’m damned if I can detect a purpose to this. What’s especially fascinating about this particular mechanism is that it wraps: left and right edges connect, as do top and bottom. And if you study it, you'll find there are a couple of closed loops. Just gazing at it, I feel like a kid who's been presented with a shiny new toy. It kinda makes me wish I still smoked pot....

Ah, those were the days, now a couple dozen years in the past. Firing up a jay and cueing up Firesign Theater, or turning on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, or opening a volume of Escher prints and getting lost. But there came a point when the stuff just got too strong – too conducive to paranoia, no more mellow highs – and several age-group peers have confirmed this. (Marcelle Clements also wrote about it in a perceptive essay entitled “The Dog Is Us,” but you’ll have to check the library or used-book market.) Judging from the few tokes I’ve been offered since then, I don’t know how they do it anymore.

Getting high was good for such activities and I’m sure would enhance the appreciation of this splendid gif. Maybe giving up the habit led to my abandonment of fun and games in general – which is not to suggest that I was baked as a kid when I got out the tinker toys or became preoccupied with a sliding-tile puzzle. Maybe it’s just that the nature of our toys has changed. Now my “toy” of choice is an mp3 player that invites me to obsessively manipulate its content. Or the very laptop on which I’m writing this post.

So compelling is this gif that I opted to make it my wallpaper on said laptop, replacing the image of the lunar surface that I’d selected from the palette that Lenovo provided. And I’ll tell you, it’s quite a contrast going from the Sea of Tranquility to this constant busy-ness. I’m not quite sure it’s there to stay, but it’s something to stare at. And at the very least, it should be good for a contact high.

Which may well be its intended task.

The Boss

First we had Ronnie Raygun co-opting “Born in the USA.” Flash forward a quarter century, and New Jersey Republican governor-elect Christie makes it known he’s a big fan. Now conservative pundit David Brooks comes out with a tribute. Doesn’t matter that the man himself campaigned for Kerry and Obama; everybody loves the Boss.I’m no exception, although I do qualify my level of fandom. When I set up this blog, I was pleased to see that you can list favorite movies, books, and music in your profile – definitely useful for letting people know where you’re at. I specified “early Springsteen” because, although I could also have cited “early Dead” (back when Pigpen carried more vocals than Bobby) or “classic Airplane” (from when Grace joined until Spencer left), Bruce’s early stuff is truly special to me. When I clicked on the published link, I saw that another dozen people had done the same.Having spent my first 30 years in the Philly burbs, I was introduced to Bruce’s music from the start thanks to heavy rotation on WMMR. I got to see him once at the Main Point (a folk club seating maybe a hundred) and twice at the Tower Theater before he graduated to larger venues like the Spectrum, where his epic three-hour sets included stunts like vanishing from the stage in a blackout during “Spirit in the Night” and reappearing in an upper deck to finish the song. I particularly cherish a memory of looking down at the Tower’s stage from the balcony while Bruce sat at the piano singing a slow “Thunder Road” and Suki Lahav backed him up on violin; unfortunately, all evidence points to Suki having left the band by then, and no published setlist substantiates my memory. Oh well, there must have been something in the air....The anticipation in Philly of Born to Run was palpable, but the wait for that was nothing compared to Darkness. And when the latter was released, I remember seeing the cover for the first time and saying to myself, “What’s going on here?” The beard was gone and so was the smile. The lyrics were leaner, the vocals throatier. It was a new Bruce, hipster transformed to working stiff, and I wasn’t sure I liked him as well. I bought The River and Nebraska, then I stopped.

For me, the first three albums are touchstones – as iconic as Dylan’s first three ventures into rock – and the only thing that tops their magic is the fabled bootleg The Saint, the Incident, and the Main Point Shuffle, a radio concert from Feb. 5, 1975. (Yes, David Brooks got the date wrong.) Born to Run had yet to be released, and it’s startling to hear the band launch into the title track without any audience recognition whatsoever. “Thunder Road” was still being worked out, called “Wings for Wheels,” but “Jungleland” was nearly finalized. The real gems are a down-tempo “Incident on 57th Street” kicking off the set, widely regarded by those who’ve heard it as the definitive version, and a “New York City Serenade” embellished with stunning improvisation. And the one thing I still find curious is that, so soon after its appearance on vinyl, “Sandy” already features the “angels on Harleys” lyric replacing the girl bopping down the beach with the radio. I’ve always wondered what prompted him to make that change.

By the time he’d recorded the 2000 concerts released as Live in New York City, Bruce had solidified his working-man persona despite his liberal activism – so much so that cops felt betrayed by the scolding he gave them in “American Skin.” While I enjoyed the HBO special and find the CD exhilarating, I’m still bothered by the change in his voice, its almost geezer-ish quality in spots. Back at the Main Point, the opening lines to “Jungleland” were a street-smart kid delivering a cinematic vision; now it’s like grandpa spinning a yarn.

Early Springsteen was youthful exuberance incarnate, and I’ve wondered what kind of impact Bruce would’ve made if his career had been launched with Darkness. Maybe it wouldn’t’ve mattered – but maybe he wouldn’t’ve attracted fans like me or the other dozen bloggers whose profiles make the same distinction mine does. We’ll have to get together sometime and share memories. Because they’re utterly indelible.

Black Friday and Financial Markets

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The fact that I decided to kick off this blog on Black Friday betrays the fact that I’m sitting at home writing it rather than venturing out to the mall. Truth be told, I prefer to do my shopping on-line rather than cope with crowds, and the fact that I’ll buy shoes from a web site without the certainty of trying them on attests to my aversion. Most of my wardrobe comes from L.L. Bean, and the only things I wear that would vaguely qualify as “designer” are the jeans that Lands End hems to order (which I suspect is only a strategy of inventory management). I admit that this doesn’t do a whole lot for the local economy, but the UPS guy seems to appreciate it.

But it’s a sure thing that the media will be buzzing for the next few days over whether this year’s Black Friday will be a harbinger of recovery or a specter of continuing angst. Sales data will be as eagerly anticipated as election returns. Face it, the Thanksgiving turkey has become the groundhog of the American economy.

Today is also the day when the news led off with reports of Dubai debt defaults sending ripples through international financial markets. I suppose something that immediate has understandable effects; what’s always puzzled me is the market reacting to reports of economic events in the past, such as statistics on housing or employment from the previous month. It’s history, dudes! Get over it!

On those days when it appears that the wheeler-dealers are concerned that the sky might fall, the catchphrase around our house is “Mr. Market be sad.” Granted, occasionally Mr. Market be happy; but the bottom line is, Mr. Market be fickle. And the media coverage that’s always both baffled and irritated me comes in the form of headlines and leads that report “Investors expressed concern today...,” “Investors weighed in on the bad news...,” and similar attempts to blame collapsing markets on some conspiratorial conglomerate of Investors.

Well, I’m an investor and I’m content to ride out the storm. Apparently I wasn’t invited to the decision-making conference (which for all I know was held at the mall). It’d be refreshingly honest if the media coined some new label to identify those investors who are responsible for the dramatic downturns – something to capture the spirit of those who are only in it to turn as quick a buck as possible. How about “greedmongers”? “Gekkos”? Or maybe just “fat cats,” the ones eating pheasant yesterday instead of turkey. (By the way, they won’t be at the mall today either; they’ll be at stores like Saks buying the items I see in the ads on page 3 of the NY Times challenging my credulity that people actually pay so much for pedestrian articles of clothing. I mean, really: $375 for a hoodie?)

And so I hope this Black Friday turns out well for the millions of Americans who have off today so that they can go to the mall and shop for bargains and help the pundits weigh in on the future of our economy. And for the other millions who are not off today because they’re working retail in support of this effort. And let’s not forget the millions who don’t fit into either category because they’re out of work. Or are off fighting in unwinnable wars. Or are too ill to shop because they lack health insurance....

But as for the fat cats who got us into this mess: May pheasant bones lodge in your throats. May your Saks parcels be left out in the rain. And may you have to stand in long lines at the post office to return your designer shoes. The ones I got from Bean fit just fine.

Opening Post

Ever since I discovered blogs, I’ve been a fan of blog-surfing. I’ve found it an enjoyable way to pass the time, particularly in the evening while sitting in my La-Z-Boy with a tumbler of brandy on the rocks, to simply click on the “Next Blog” button at the top of any Blogspot page and see where it takes me. Better than TV channel-surfing where you come to know the order of rotation and, even if the programs change, the general content of the channel stays pretty much the same.

But I’ve noticed that the powers-that-be at Blogspot have fine-tuned the process. It seems like when I first started blog-surfing, that button would take me anywhere: cooking blogs, mommy blogs, travel blogs, even porn blogs.... (Blogspot also used to offer a stream of blogs on their home page whereby you could click on them at random, but that feature has unfortunately disappeared.)

Then there was a frustrating period when I’d land repeatedly on the same blog over and over again; some pages are designed without a “Next Blog” button so that I’d have to back up to the previous blog, but I’d land right back at the same dead-end. It drove me to tears and led me to suspend surfing for a while.

Now it looks like they’ve gotten rid of those cyberspace cul-de-sacs for the most part; only problem is, “Next Blog” now takes me to a page with a theme similar to that of the blog I’m jumping from – which is handy if I’m foraging for recipes or surveying American political opinion, but frustrating if what I crave is randomness.

And so I decided to create my own random blog.

My cat Peaches – one of three – is particularly fond of this pose, even more so when striking it with my wife Beth, who has more hair for her to knead. We refer to it as “Peaches getting head.” I won’t pretend that Peaches is responsible for inspiring any of the comments that may appear here; it just seemed like a good lead on which to hang my posts. This mancathead blog will strive to focus on a wide range of topics; but strangely, when I hit “Next Blog” before even loading my first post, I hit two sites devoted to dance and a bunch of mommy blogs – so go figure.